Novena

You are sleepless; you want to judge everything, direct everything and see to everything and you surrender to human strength, or worse – to men themselves, trusting in their intervention, – this is what hinders my words and my views. Oh how much I wish from you this surrender, to help you; and how I suffer when I see you so agitated! Satan tries to do exactly this: to agitate you and to remove you from my protection and to throw you into the jaws of human initiative. So, trust only in me, rest in me, surrender to me in everything.
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

Something to consider

How often have we said or thought, I wish someone would do something about such and such? Or, if only so and so was elected, everything would be better. This is a trap, when we surrender to human strength instead of trusting entirely in the Lord. The solution must be the right party, person, management, or government. Jesus says this kind of human initiative gets in the way of surrender. Did you notice how much the Lord suffers when we get agitated?

Come again?

Christ suffers when we let ourselves become anxiety-ridden and agitated. We cannot rely solely on men and women to fix things. Yes, we are supposed to get involved in civil matters, vote and sit on committees: our Christian voice and witness matters. The critical indicator of being off track is agitation because it points to the fact that we depend on ourselves, or others more than we depend on God. It is dangerous because we remove ourselves from God’s protection, which is a precarious place.

“God is a God of peace. He does not speak or operate except in peace, not in trouble and not in agitation…Every Christian must be thoroughly convinced that his spiritual life can in no way be viewed as the quiet unfolding of an inconsequential life without any problems; rather it must be viewed as the scene of a constant and sometimes painful battle which will not end until death—a struggle against evil, temptation, and the sin that is in him,”  (Finding and Maintaining Inner Peace. Fr J. Phillippe)

Whoever said life was supposed to be fair and a box of chocolates was a liar. We believe this however and then become anxious and worried when it is not. This is not heaven. This is the spiritual war zone, the journey and our proving grounds. The good news is we are not alone, and God is beside us every step of the way. We must start acting like we believe it. This novena is the beginning of our reorientation to reality and our complete surrender to our amazing God.